Lionsgate's sponsors StarCraft 2 tournament on Twitch and MLG for Ender's Game

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Update - 9:58 AM PST: Twitch has released the playerlist for their portion of the tournament, all of which are currently residing in the United States. They are as follows: Chris ''HuK' Loranger; Paulo 'CatZ' Vizcarra; Choi 'Polt' Seong Hun; Kim 'Violet' Dong Hwan; Gage 'Sasquatch' DuBose; Chad 'Minigun Jones; Brandon 'puck' Qual; Alex 'Neeb' Sunderhaft; Conan 'Suppy' Liu; Bailey 'Bails' Thomas; Max 'Astrea' Angel; Kevin 'qxc' Riley; Chris 'Illusion' Lee; Zifeng 'hellokitty' Wang, and Libo 'xenocider' Chang, with one more player to be announced.

"The skills used to develop battle leaders in Ender’s Game are drawn from real world gaming, especially the types of skills used by premier tournament level players,” said Anne Parducci, Executive Vice President of Marketing for Lionsgate. “We are excited to partner with Major League Gaming and Twitch, both leaders in the eSports world, to present this unprecedented movie tie-in aimed directly at those who take gaming seriously."

The North America-based tournament will feature 32 of the best StarCraft II players beginning with two qualifying rounds and culminating in one final competition. The players will be divided into two groups of 16 for qualifying matches airing on Twitch and MLG.tv. The first round will be broadcast on Twitch from February 5th to 9th and the second round will run from February 11th to 16th on MLG.tv. The winners from each event will advance to the Ender’s Game on Blu-ray Tournament: Championship Round taking place February 22nd and airing on Twitch. The champion will walk away with a grand prize of $10,000.

“Lionsgate understands that gamers are more than a niche, they are everyone,” said Ben Goldhaber, Director of Content Marketing for Twitch. “By leveraging Twitch’s community of 45 million gamers, many of whom spend hours playing and watching sci-fi inspired games, creating an esport event around Ender’s Game on our platform makes perfect sense.”

“MLG’s global audience spend an average of 150 minutes a weekend watching professionally produced eSports content on MLG.tv and they look to fill the non-gaming hours of their day with action-packed entertainment and movies like Ender’s Game,” said Don Reilley, EVP Sales, Major League Gaming. “The Enders Game on Blu-ray Tournament is a perfect example of the great competitions and broadcasts that are possible with partners on the MLG.tv platform.”

MLG, in partnership with GameOn, will feature 16 players including 12 invited players, with fans having the opportunity to vote on the remaining four players. Voting will take place February 3rd to 5th at http://gameon.gg/. MLG has confirmed the following players through invites: Sasha 'Scarlett' Hostyn, Tyler 'NonY' Wasieleski, Juan Carlos 'MajOr' Tena Lopez, Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson, Sam 'Kane' Morrissette, Ryan 'State' Visbeck, Marc-Olivier 'desRow' Proulx, Henry 'hendralisk' Zheng, Danny 'ViBE' Scherlong, Maru 'MaSa' Kim, David 'avilo' Blowe, and Victor 'Hitman' Lin.

The event will be cast by Paulo 'CatZ' Vizcarra and Steven 'Destiny' Bonnell along with other guest hosts.

Twitch is reaching out to key Starcraft communities and inviting them to send their top talent to compete in the Ender’s Game on Blu-ray Tournament: Twitch Round. The players for the Twitch round are not yet confirmed.